Recipient

Christopher Monroe
University of Maryland

Citation:

"For pioneering research in the use of lasers to realize the elements of quantum information processing with trapped atomic ions, including demonstrations of remote entanglement for quantum communication protocols and use of frequency combs for high-speed qubit manipulation and entanglement."

Background:

Christopher Monroe is an experimental atomic physicist who specializes in the isolation of individual atoms for studies in quantum physics and applications in quantum information science. After getting his undergraduate degree from MIT, Monroe studied with Carl Wieman at the University of Colorado, earning his PhD in Physics in 1992. From 1992-2000 he was a postdoc then staff physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in the group of David Wineland. With Wineland, Monroe led the research team that demonstrated the first quantum logic gate in 1995, and exploited the use of trapped atoms for applications in quantum information science. In 2000, Monroe became Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he pioneered the use of single photons to couple quantum information between atoms and also demonstrated the first electromagnetic atom trap integrated on a semiconductor chip. From 2006-2007 was the Director of the National Science Foundation Ultrafast Optics Center at the University of Michigan. In 2007 he became the Bice Zorn Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland and a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute. In 2008, Monroe's group succeeded in producing quantum entanglement between two widely separated atoms and for the first time teleported quantum information between matter separated by a large distance. Since 2009 his group has investigated the use of ultrafast laser pulses for fast quantum entanglement operations and also pioneered the use of trapped ions for quantum simulations of many-body models related to quantum magnetism.